Caution: Approach At Your Own Risk
by Sapphire's Ink
Summary: One of them is a pyromaniac who (tries to) stab anyone who gets too close. One is a psychopath with a tendency to overuse Yamanaka-style jutsu. One of them explodes everything they touch. Their teacher always stays at arm's length, but he's Friend-Killer Hatake Kakashi, and you should only approach him at your own risk, too. Mostly his team, though. Akun50's prompt on TFF. Enjoy.
1. Bells

**Written for Akun50's 'unique power-ups' challenge on The Fanfiction Forum years ago.**

 **The rules were as followed:**

 **1: Team Seven's power-ups had to come from a pre-existing character from a different anime, movie, book, video game, etc. No self-made powers.**  
 **2: Kakashi could not know about the powers before testing began, and he had to be defeated by them.**  
 **3: Tell everyone whose power-ups were given when all was said and done in case they couldn't figure it out for themselves.**

 **There were a few others, but those are the most important ones. Anything was alright for this weird trio. Gender roles could be completely disregarded, too. You could turn Naruto into a Power Ranger, Sasuke into Sailor Venus, or Sakura into a character from Fist of the North Star if that's what made you happy.**

 **I follow that they're replaced by anime characters, or characters from cartoons that could be perceived as anime.**

 **Enjoy.**

* * *

Kakashi watched from his perch in the trees. He winced at their outfits. None of them were sensible for their rank. (Well, they'd gotten better. It was still pretty bad, though.)

The blond boy had traded his orange eyesore with an equally attention-grabbing yellow trench coat, and every other scrap of clothing black or in dark shades. For some reason, the jinchuuriki toted a cane with him now, and hid one of his eyes behind an eye patch bearing the Konoha symbol, arranged in a way that made the village emblem look like an eye. A tall top hat adorned his head, making his spiky hair stick out awkwardly. He seemed to be sleeping, but his gut told him he was alert.

Sakura was wearing a black cloak covering her entire body, ripped at the seams with armored shoulder pads. She wore practical pants and boots to her knees. She was standing, careful not to touch any surface whatsoever. He could smell the limiter iron in her boots and sewn into her cloak, though he couldn't fathom why it was there. Her hair was combed back. Kakashi noticed she wasn't wearing the Hitai-ate, and no shirt over her sports bra or bandages over her stomach. He could, however, spot the Konoha emblem tattooed over her heart in black, half-covered by her bra strap.

Sasuke's hair seemed to deviate from his normal duck-butt figure he seemed to have inherited, and also thankfully moved away from the ridiculous collars. Instead, his hair flopped in his face, falling messily between his eyes and rising in spikes all around, unmanageable. His clothing had changed, and he seemed sensible. His pants were tucked into his boots, his overcoat was tied down, he was wearing extra layers, it was darkly coloured, and it seemed fine. He couldn't find the Konoha swirl anywhere, though.

He sighed. The ridiculousness of clothing among the Jonin ranks was starting to be passed down to the younger generations.

The three instantly knew where he was. They were waiting patiently for him to come out on his own, he could tell. Neither of them were making the strides to train on their own, or interact with one another.

Kakashi appeared in the training grounds without warning, and without saying a word, he set the timer and set down the boxed lunches. Once the timer was set but not activated, he turned back to his students.

"What's the test?" Sasuke asked.

"Take one bell. If you get a bell, you pass." Kakashi started.

"There are only two. Will you only be passing two of us?"

"Yes. The person among you three who doesn't get a bell is going back to the Academy."

Sakura's head tilted so she could get a better look at the clouds. "... It'll rain soon."

Sasuke growled at that. "Fucking rain."

"Fucking rain," Sakura agrees, a hint of distain in her voice.

"Fuckin' rain," Naruto completes the odd string of agreeing with each other, more to be creepy than to actually agree.

Kakashi shrugged, dismissing it as one of Sasuke and Sakura's shared quirks. "You have one hour and your time starts now." He hit a button on the top of the alarm clock.

Naruto started laughing maniacally and floating into the trees (and goddamn, but that was a bit creepy). Sasuke disappeared (using Blue Spirit skills-with-a-z). Sakura just stood still.

Hm. That pink one was a head-scratcher.

He didn't have to wait long before he was attacked.

Attacking head-on was a breeze. Sakura went first, destroying most of the ground in chunks and leaving a gaping crater. He was unbalanced. Sasuke saw his chance and came in from above, swords literally blazing. He waited until a few seconds before impact before using the replacement technique, leaving the wooden log destroyed and Sakura hit by Sasuke's swords.

Sakura was indeed hit by Sasuke's swords, but some odd instinctual chakra surfaced the second she was hit and the dual swords disintegrated. Sakura sighed and apologized, while Kakashi was left in the trees gaping at the scenario.

He was shaken out of his shock when the world fell away around him, leaving a white space. If he concentrated, he could see an odd triangle and parts of his life flashing before his eyes, before Konoha reappeared around him, tons of doors encircling him, and a yellow triangle in the distance, observing his doors.

The triangle turned back to him. It had only one eye.

 _"I seeeeeeeee youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu, Sssssssssssssssstaaaaaaaaaaaaanffffooooooooooooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrd..."_ the triangle's voice echoed in his mindscape, sounding oddly like Naruto...

Kakashi woke up then, released from whatever odd Genjutsu he'd just been experiencing, to the sound of his alarm clock ringing. Sasuke and Sakura were standing over him, Sakura holding her bell in the palm of her hand, being sure not to touch it save with iron-laced fingerless gloves, and Sasuke holding his between his index and his thumb.

He looked up, and Naruto was cackling.

"It looks like you're the one to go back to the Academy, Naruto," Kakashi commented. It was just to rile him up, but he loved seeing idiot Genin riled up. He winced at the noise. Sakura apparently agreed, and flicked the alarm clock. It covered itself in orange lines from the point where she'd flicked it, and it disintegrated into little cubes. He gaped at that, but sighed. He figure he was going to have to get used to it.

Naruto didn't take the bait. He laughed harder, only to abruptly stop. "Sasu, mind cutting up the bells?"

Sasuke growled. "Why not do it yourself?"

"You're closer, moron." Naruto's evil-looking smile stretched across his whole face.

"I don't have swords anymore, idiot!" Sasuke griped. "Sakura smashed them!"

The Konoha emblem on Naruto's eye patch turned halfway red, contrasting nicely with the shocking sunshine yellow. "You can melt them, can't you?"

"Or you can just let me do it." Sakura offered. She held her bell between her fingers and orange lines spread across the bell in equal measure, dividing it into three. She took Sasuke's bell, and divided it equally as well, then threw two pieces up at Naruto, kept two for herself, and gave the last two fragments to Sasuke. "There. We all have two-thirds of the bells. Pass us all."

Kakashi sighed. These three were no fun at all. "Fine. You all pass. Let's go eat."

Naruto laughed maniacally and ran down the streets yelling about cherry soda (he noticed his eye patch was back to hard yellow, and he felt slightly less apprehensive). Sakura ran after him, protesting her craving for nachos. Sasuke followed, grumbling about dango.

He hadn't even seen most of their skills. He could tell Sakura was only showing around 1%, and 2% when she was startled by nearly being run through. Sasuke was holding back at least half his power, but he wasn't bad with fire jutsu or sword techniques. Naruto hadn't really done anything but put him in a Genjutsu, but Kakashi was sure the blond had more than that up his sleeve. He'd heard something about Kage Bunshin from the T&I/R&D/ANBU (whatever department it actually was) gossipers. That would make _everything_ easier to learn.

... The first thing to determine would be elemental affinities.

 **Naruto: Bill Cipher, human form with powers, _Gravity Falls_. (Just assume Naruto can mindfuck people at will because of the Kyuubi or he was adopted by the Yamanaka, and ask no further questions.)**

 **Sakura: Gildarts Clive, end of the series, Fairy Tail. (Gildarts' traits were passed to Sakura, so just assume she's also an overpowered laid-back sex/porn-obsessed female 'lady's man', but not a horrible role model. In my book, basically a genderbent cross between Jiraiya and Iruka.)**

 **Sasuke: Zuko, nearing Sozin's comet, _Avatar: the Last Airbender_. (There is no version of Mai here, so pretend she doesn't exist. Otherwise, all his character traits are intact.)**

 **Next chapter: Kakashi tries to teach different elemental-style jutsu. Sasuke yells something about not being the Avatar, Sakura makes a lake explode with the weird orange lines, Naruto laughs, and Kakashi desperately needs a barrel of alcohol.**

 **Notes: Please no flames. I'm really not good at writing comedy, and the reason I'm here is to get better. I have ASD, so it's difficult for me to understand certain nuances that make humor, which is why I labelled it 'dramatic humor'. Hopefully, there'll be a noticeable improvement by the tenth chapter and I'll be able to drop the 'drama' part.**


	2. Obsessing over fire

**Written for Akun50's 'unique power-ups' challenge on The Fanfiction Forum years ago.**

 **I follow that they're replaced by anime characters, or characters from cartoons that could be perceived as anime.**

 **Enjoy.**

 **Notes: Please no flames. I'm really not good at writing comedy, and the reason I'm here is to get better. I have ASD, so it's difficult for me to understand certain nuances that make humor, which is why I labelled it 'dramatic humor'. Hopefully, there'll be a noticeable improvement by the tenth chapter and I'll be able to drop the 'drama' part. If you have any suggestions, I'm open to them.**

* * *

Sakura was meditating on the ground, cloak folded neatly under her, revealing her Konoha affiliation mark. Her body glowed a brilliant white and her hair defied gravity as it absorbed more energy from the lacrimae in the air. Sasuke was somewhere nearby, using his newest swords to do chin-ups against a tree branch. Naruto was floating around Sasuke, laughing. Sasuke was just a bit riled up and expending energy in an effort not to punch his teammates.

Kakashi appeared and they all halted. Sakura stood up very carefully, not touching the ground, and put the cloak back on, hands clasped behind hr back in respect. Sasuke got up from the tree and dug his dual swords out from the tree branch and knelt. Naruto reduced his laughing to giggles under his breath and floated relatively close to his teammates.

"Today," Kakashi started, "we'll be learning new elemental techniques."

He got out eight scrolls, one from each element group, yin, yang, and yin-yang.

Sakura approached, pulling on a different pair of gloves so her fingertips were covered, looking at Kakashi for his advice on which scroll to take first. Kakashi handed her a scroll with a dark blue covering. A water scroll containing a simple mist jutsu, and she walked off to try it. Kakashi handed Sasuke a lightning scroll, and Naruto a wind scroll.

Sasuke whipped open his light-blue scroll, glaring at the contents. "Sifu Kakashi, this is for lightning. I haven't learned how to create lightning yet."

"That's what we're here for, Sasuke." Kakashi said.

"No really, Sifu Kakashi, I can create fire just fine." To illustrate, he created a ball of fire in his hand without any hand signs. "My sister can make it a different colour," and here Kakashi wondered about the brunet's sanity, because he didn't have a sister, "and my uncle can make lightning," he didn't receive any reports about Fugaku or Mikoto having any male siblings either, "but I was banished before I could learn anything." his fireball flickered out, no longer supported and fed by Sasuke's energy. (Goddamn, what was wrong with his student? He wasn't banished, HIS CLAN WAS MASSACRED!)

Kakashi's left eye twitched. "What about other elements? Earth?"

Sasuke looked almost angry at the mention. "LOOK, I KNOW I'M NOT THE AVATAR, BUT YOU DON'T HAVE TO RUB IT IN MY FACE, OKAY?"

Kakashi silently wonders where that came from as Naruto makes hand seals and blows out fire for the Gokakyu Kakashi had assigned with the scrolls.

Sasuke screams like he just saw Uchiha Madara using Susano'o. "BLUE FIRE! AZULA IS HERE! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!" He proceeds to follow his own advice, and made it halfway to the Forest of Death before Kakashi caught him by the collar and dragged him back to the training fields kicking and screaming, brandishing swords and flailing dramatically. (Team Ino-Shika-Cho wonders what the f### they're doing. Training thing, maybe?) Naruto was happily (or Kakashi assumed he was happy based on the laughter) burning down the forest, blue fire encircling and raging around him. His eye patch was still thankfully yellow, though he still didn't understand why that worried him so much.

Sakura, meanwhile, was slowly starting to understand this jutsu. She'd read about it while trying to find information on Crash magic so she could maybe find a better limiter than iron in clothing (because goddamn, those iron threads cost a lot, and it took a lot of time to sew into clothes), and figured it was some kind of water type. Well, some people could learn two types of magic, so why not, right?

Sakura slipped off her cloak and set it on the ground, meditating for an elemental affinity. She knew hers was yin, yang, and yin-yang, but elemental affinities were so useful too. She kind of envied celestial wizards. They could use so many types of magic as long as they had the right spirits...

It was during this little mental debate about finding another type of magic (well, Erza got levitation and re-equip/equip...) that she accidental let her control slip.

The orange lines around her didn't go any further than the lake, where she'd arranged hardened iron veins from previously exploded rocks so she wouldn't slice n' dice up anything important.

This, however, did not include the lake she'd been meditating next to.

Orange lines spread over the water and froze it until it was all ice cubes, decidedly not stuck together.

Sakura opened her eyes at the familiar sound of her magic working. She got to her feet. "GODDAMN IT! THIS DIDN'T HAPPEN ON THAT WEIRD ISLAND WHERE THE GROUND WAS RED, SO WHY THE F### DOES IT STILL HAPPEN HERE?"

The ground exploded with the weird orange lines again.

Kakashi, surrounded by blue fire and a laughing pyromaniac, and a brunet going on and on about how his great-grandfather shouldn't have killed the Air Nomads in cold blood (and when did he get the idea that Uchiha Madara killed every single shinobi in Wind, or the idea that they were nomadic?), decides he needs a drink.

Three hours later, clothes singed and one of his boots diced, he wobbles to the Poisoned Kunai and orders beer. An hour after that, barrel to his lips and drinking through his mask, people wonder how he got so good at drinking the regular boozers under the tables without leaving so much as a trail down his chin. (If you asked for an explanation, Kakashi would go off on a twenty-minute long tangent that could be summed up in two words: BLAME GAI.)

 **Next chapter: Kakashi contemplates the top-secret Kekkei Genkai library**

 **Notes: That weird island where the ground was red Sakura mentioned is actually PEI. To my knowledge, there's not an island with such a high concentration of iron anywhere else in the world.**


	3. General insanity

**Do I even need to put up a disclaimer at this point? You all already know I'm not the creator of _Naruto_ , _Fairy Tail_ , _Gravity Falls_ , or _Avatar: the Last Airbender_.**

 **Also, warning: general insanity. Though, that should be rather obvious by this point.**

 **Erm... Have fun.**

 **PS: I'm genuinely trying to write humor into this story and that fact might be overly obvious in my writing style. The point of this story if that I get better at that. I want your genuine opinion and constructive criticism, it would really help.**

* * *

It was after training that day that Kakashi decided he finally had enough, went to the library, and checked out a book listing Hiden clan techniques and Kekkei Genkai.

Going through the book with speed any desk-shinobi would be envious of (and consequently abusing his Sharingan), he found out about a technique that might fit Sakura.

Explosion Release. Technically a chakra type that would make her oriented towards Earth and Lightning techniques and make Water exceedingly difficult, only he hadn't found any actual correlation with orange lines. It was the most plausible theory, though, and Sakura's grandfather did originate from Iwa. Using a Kekkei Genkai so haphazardly wasn't healthy, though, and Sakura had less control over her power than Naruto did as an Academy student.

Speaking of, he also found a technique that lets you read memories through genjutsu and also rearrange body parts (Kakashi had his eyeballs switched form one side to another each time Naruto snapped his fingers, and he didn't appreciate having to readjust his hitai-ate or listen to Sasuke screeching about that shouldn't be possible outside of the Spirit Realm each time it happened until Naruto found a new fun torture victim), but the Ketsuryugan wasn't indigenous to Konoha or to Uzushio, which he knew for a fact was where his parents grew up.

Then how the f### was Naruto's insane abilities accounted for, then?

He hated this. He hated this. He hated this.

Flipping back through the pages for the Ketsuryugan description, he found that he hated this even more. The Ketsuryugan only manipulated iron in blood or weapons, not actual organs or other body parts (and let me tell ya, it's not fun watching enemy-nin suddenly have ears for nostrils). It wasn't a genjutsu, either. He'd asked Sasuke to use the Sharingan (and don't even get him started about what he felt when he discovered that Sasuke didn't even know what the Sharingan _was_ ) to try and see if it was real or not, because as it stood Sasuke's Sharingan was far safer than Kakashi's own, being from a different bloodline and not being able to use the Sharingan to full capacity and all. Eventually he'd given up and found out it was 100% real (and Naruto tried switching his eyeballs' position again).

Don't even get him started about how Sakura, on the same mission, **accidentally** exploded a mountain just by standing on it. She'd just taken off her damned shoes and other clothing while trying to bathe (because even the boys were staring to complain about how she stunk, and Naruto threatening to rearrange her face was incentive enough, thank-you-very-much). How could just lounging around for a few minutes have been incentive enough for her limiters to slip?

Gah. He hated his team sometimes. Especially Naruto when he started laughing, Sakura when she exploded things without thinking, and how Sasuke started ranting about honor and had no idea how anything worked anywhere (like seriously, when you're raised in a goddamn clan but you forget most of your anger management training. How do you even avoid the Uchiha stick-up-the-ass tradition?).

Regardless, he also loved his team. They could work efficiently. Sakura had basically no long-range attacks and no goddamned control (aren't the boys supposed to be born with the bigger reserves and less control and girl be born with higher control but less chakra?), Sasuke had the best long-range attacks (even if half the forest seemed to burn down regardless), and Naruto was sheer insanity, but it worked for him. Sakura was very mature and Sasuke had been forced to adapt to loneliness, and Naruto was always complaining about being cramped, but the powerhouses the team were made him sometimes forget how young they were.

Naruto could claim all he liked that he was over 10,000 years old, but Kakashi wouldn't ever believe him (unless he was talking about the Kyuubi and using personal pronouns to describe the voice in his head). Sakura could claim all she liked that she was forty, but Kakashi would never believe her (the power level fit though, but not the lack of control). Sasuke's perceived age actually fit him best, but was still way off the mark: sixteen, and Kakashi would never believe him no matter how much he protested that he was a late bloomer.

He shot a glance at his team over his (definitely not stolen) journal (in it written the very intricate specifics for Bakuton), who were training in a three-way spar. Sakura was terrified of Sasuke because the boy often acted on muscle memory and sometimes went completely insane with it and also iron daggers stuffed under his clothes and in his boots (AH! HE CAN ACTUALLY IMPALE ME WITH THOSE F###ING THINGS!). Sasuke was terrified of Naruto because he could rearrange faces (WHY THE F### DID YOU PUT SUCH-AND-SUCH'S EAR _THERE?_ ). Naruto was terrified of Sakura because she could explode mountains without actually wanting to (OH F###, SHE DOESN'T HAVE ANY F###ING LIMITERS, WHAT THE ACTUAL F### DO I DO?).

Kakashi looks back at the current page and shakes his head when the words blur out for a second.

The three don't dare look up from their spar when Kakashi falls asleep and off the tree he'd been studying in. Kakashi later silently thanks them for their discretion, even if he knows none of them wanted to take eyes off the other.

* * *

 **No spoilers. Leave a review. Comments are always appreciated. Next chapter coming out at some point. Later.**


	4. Tazuna would like another team

**Do I even need to put up a disclaimer at this point? You all already know I'm not the creator of _Naruto_ , _Fairy Tail_ , _Gravity Falls_ , or _Avatar: the Last Airbender_.**

 **Also, warning: general insanity. Though, that should be rather obvious by this point. Also, euphemism'ed cursing (fork = fuck, shirt = shit, asshole = ash-hole, bitch = bench) (though it depends on the context. If you see something like 'Sakura sat down on a nearby bench. It exploded', then it's likely I'm not using the swear words).**

 **Erm... Have fun.**

 **Also, Thank you to Merchant of Blue Death for your suggestion.**

 **PS: I'm genuinely trying to write humor into this story and that fact might be overly obvious in my writing style. The point of this story if that I get better at that. I want your genuine opinion and constructive criticism, it would really help.  
**

 **Bold - KI.**

* * *

After watching Sakura blow up the Yondaime's stone head and needing several skilled Doton users to put it back together, he made two decisions.

One: Sakura needed a stronger concentration of iron in her clothing. Also control exercises where she couldn't blow up trees or lakes (because he once saw her blow up a lake too, and stood there looking like he was in the middle of an absence seizure until his mind finally caught up and he chastised the girl).

Two: If the people of Konoha were going to keep their sanity, Sakura needed to be let out of the village again.

Honestly, if he was being honest, he really didn't want to take them outside of Konoha yet. His genin were psychotic and lacking control, but they were his and no one was going to be putting them in danger before he decided it was okay (and anyone who got in his way could fight him, and he would't hold back). Seriously, though, taking them out of the village would probably do some good.

Also, he was getting tired of having to reconstruct fields where his little demons were called to pick weeds.

(Seriously, civilian chores were not well-suited to his weirdos.)

If he was being honest, he could tell Sasuke needed the time out of the city too. He kept staring wistfully at the city walls (sometimes muttering under his breath about someone named Mai), often camping under the stars instead of in his house (when asked, he said he'd abandoned his house a month ago).

Naruto kept burning down his building, restoring it with his weird time jutsu, and then burning it down again. It was annoying to the other residents, and they needed a break, lest they try and kill his dysfunctional student.

So, giving Sakura a pair of boots made of iron and chakra seals set all over her arms and his other two comfortable travelling cloaks, he and his team went to the Hokage for a C-rank mission.

Thank god, there was one on hand.

A drunkard wanting to get back to his homeland (which struck Kakashi as suspicious, because the mission details said that he'd also just come from Wave two days ago, which was the travelling time for a civilian. So why leave your home for no reason (all his possessions were listed as not having changed from the time he'd come and the time he decided to leave) just to be asked to be taken back home?) and for protection as he built a bridge (which was also odd. Why not hire Kiri ninja? This was Wave, not Boar).

Sakura's eyes narrowed at the mission details she'd read over his shoulder. She had the same misconceptions about their newest client.

But she kept up her mask of deception, the one that said she was a completely insane person. "Tazuna-san, I'm sure we'll be fine on our journey. **Beware of randomly falling paint buckets.** "

Tazuna didn't seem to know how to respond to that.

Naruto, still laughing and floating four feet off the ground, 'swam' over to the bridge builder. "I like forks. Do you have any forks? I also like eyeballs. Can I have your eyeballs?"

Sasuke puled the blond back by the lapels of his jacket. "Sorry about him. He's a bit eccentric."

"Eccentric's a funny word, kid!" Naruto yelled joyously.

Sakura's hand went to the seam of her glove. "Be quiet in front of the client, Naruto-baka."

The blond quieted. Sakura left her glove alone.

Kakashi eye-smiled as Sasuke silently assessed their client, subtly keeping his hand close to his sword hilts.

"We will leave tomorrow, at-" Tazuna started.

"Doesn't matter the time." Sakura smoothed back her hair.

"Really, really doesn't. Except if the comet comes before we do, and then we're too late and my dad will burn down the Earth Kingdom." Sasuke crossed his arms, and Kakashi contemplated ripping his hair out. FUGAKU WAS DEAD, WHY DIDN'T SASUKE FORKING _LISTEN_?

"REALITY IS AN ILLUSION, THE UNIVERSE IS A HOLOGRAM, **BUY GOLD** , BYE!" Naruto yelled, climbing out the window. The ANBU in the rafters twitched at the odd goodbye.

"Sorry, that's one of his odd habits." Sakura scratches the back of her head.

"Yeah." Sasuke agrees.

Kakashi shrugs in a way that seems to scream 'what can ya do?'.

Tazuna weakly turned to the assignment desk. "... Can I have a different team? _Please?_ "

* * *

 **No spoilers. Leave a review. Comments are always appreciated. Next chapter coming out at some point. Later.**


	5. Naruto kills the Demon Bros

**Do I even need to put up a disclaimer at this point? You all already know I'm not the creator of _Naruto_ , _Fairy Tail_ , _Gravity Falls_ , or _Avatar: the Last Airbender_.**

 **Also, warning: general insanity and _The Good Place_ -cursing.**

 **Erm... Have fun.**

 **PS: I'm genuinely trying to write humor into this story and that fact might be overly obvious in my writing style. The point of this story if that I get better at that. I want your genuine opinion and constructive criticism, it would really help.  
**

 **Bold - KI.**

* * *

Naruto didn't bother himself with traps or various other details like genjutsu that could potentially kill him. His most useful technique was Time Reversal, so anything that could potentially kill him was generally reversed a few hours until he could find an acceptable solution that ended with lots of fire and torture.

Sasuke didn't really bother with genjutsu either. All he knew was that he was good at breaking them, but casting them was where he absolutely sucked ash. So he left it alone and worked on what he'd learned from the other elements in bending styles, and was performing firebending kata all the way down the route they were taking.

Sakura, of course, was mostly trying to make herself not explode anything. The limiter seals and the extra iron in her boots could only do so much. Honestly, being bundled up in so much cloth was unnecessary and felt odd. She felt like she always wanted to divest herself of her fingered gloves, and was thankful when Kakashi had told her she could keep them off for the mission as long as she didn't touch anything without one of her gloves on and one hand uncovered. This was why she preferred nonstop travelling over staying in one place: being a hermit wasn't great living, but it made it that much more unlikely that she would explode something of actual value.

Lost in thought, Sakura didn't notice the puddle.

Kakashi did, though, and decided this would be a good opportunity to test his cute students.

When the Demon Brothers attacked Kakashi first, he pretended he was gone with a swift genjutsu cast on the replacement log. Naruto glared apathetically at the log, but when he looked back at the demon bros, his eye patch was red.

Naruto's contract with Kakashi had been made without Kakashi's knowledge, but when he accepted Naruto as a student, they became bonded through Demon Contract rules. He'd just let his contract-holder die, and that couldn't stand.

Naruto time-traveled back to five hours ago, while he and his team were still in Konoha, and stopped his heart so his memories would reassemble with his younger self's.

Like a shadow clone dispersing, Naruto's memories reassembled with themselves, and he continued on to the meeting place.

The second they were outside of Konoha, Naruto volunteered to scout ahead before Sasuke could. He teleported himself to the puddle, set it on fire (and enjoyed the screams of those two bastards), then phased back to his group. "All clear for five hours at a civilian pace."

Kakashi ruffled his hair and got his eyeballs switched again (Kakashi adjusted his hitai-ate over the Sharingan). "Good job."

Naruto nodded and the group kept going.

No one said anything about the red-tinged puddle. Mostly because Sakura knew it was too much blood outside of a body for it to still be living (also the pieces of charred bone spoke wonders about dismemberment), Sasuke was admiring the smell of burned flesh that he could tell was fire-chi burns (there was a certain metallic twinge in the air), Kakashi cared more about his book, and Tazuna was scared stiff, following after the four ninja on autopilot.

(Kakashi dreaded the day his little demons would be placed in the bingo book.)

~?~

Fighting Zauza took approximately three seconds.

In the first, Sakura smashed his sword, altering her magic so it smashed through only iron for half a second.

In the second, Naruto forked up his brain, leaving him foaming at the mouth with a seizure.

In the third, Sasuke set him on fire and then threw him in the lake. He was still alive when Kakashi dragged him to shore for the nearest bounty desk.

Slung over Kakashi's shoulder like a sac of potatoes after being sure he wasn't armed or capable of moving, they walked off.

Haku watched from the shadows and dropped in on them two minutes later, demanding his master's body.

Fighting Haku took one second as Sakura exploded him and collected the little pieces in an iron-laced rucksack.

"Let's see if we can collect a bounty for this one, too!" the girl exclaimed joyously.

Kakashi sighed at the possible international debacle Sakura just caused. He would have face palmed if he hadn't taken the bag from Sakura in fear that she would explode the bag and the hunter-nin again.

* * *

 **Good (insert time of day here). Happy holidays (or no holidays at all if you don't celebrate the holidays).**


	6. Tree exercise

**I have no excuse, except maybe ten things that occupy my time more which results in no time for everything else. Have fun.**

 **PS: I'm trying to get better at emulating humor, so constructive criticism would be helpful.**

* * *

Sakura's toes twitched. Her gloved fingers turned the page with the familiarity of someone who regularly wore gloves while reading. Her pupils dialated and her pulse steadily increased.

Kakashi snatched her book just as she reached the second paragraph on the page.

Sakura growled and resisted the urge to tackle him while anime-crying. "Why did you take my book?"

"Because you have a job to do," Kakashi said.

It was then that the rosette noticed the glimmers of light through the murky window. "It's morning," she remarked rhetorically. "Fork. I've been up all night. _Motherforking fork._ "

"Yup," said Kakashi with an air of 'not my problem'. "You need to learn to get sleep at the same time as everyone else."

Sakura groaned and snatched her porn away from her teacher's sicky fingers. Like the combat expert/evasion arist/war veteran he was, Kakashi took a step backwards with the book before his only female student could reach it. Like the experienced fighter Sakura was and a Fairy Tail mage who'd been rained never to give up, Sakura continued playing Kakashi's game of keep-away until Sasuke opened the door.

Seeing Kakashi and Sakura dance around a book was a bit weird, to say the least. But the boy had long learned to leave teenage girls alone whenever they did anything that even remotely resembled training, so he very silently walked away.

~?~

Sakura lost the battle for her book and was then forced to endure an explanation for what magic was (but they called it chakra here for some reason), and was then told to climb the tree without using her hands. (Well, she could think of several more useful ways to do that, and ones that required less effort than just running up the trunk using magic.)

Sasuke, in all honesty, would have just burned the tree. He didn't really see the point of this exercise since firebending didn't have anything to do with running up trees and instead came from the breath, but he followed his teacher's instructions anyways.

Naruto just pretended to walk up the tree, actually flying using his powers concerning space-time. He was therefore the first to finish the exercise and got to kill people that were after their client. (It was more fun rearranging their faces, though. He didn't know why he was forbidden from doing that.)

~?~

Gato came to the bridge the day Sasuke finally finished with the tree exercise. Sakura was still working on it.

Sasuke drew his swords, but Naruto fucked up his brain by giving him visions of being offered deer teeth over and over until he started seeing broken sunglasses in the place of teeth, or little Gatos in the place of the teeth, or little Gatos on the teeth, or little Gatos being squished by rocks, or Gato being squished by a rock, or watching as Naruto drank all his blood, or having all his teeth ripped out himself, or having his cardiovascular system messed up-

You get the gist of it. Basically torture.

It didn't take long for him to break, and he screamed whenever he saw the colour yellow for the rest of his life from then onwards.

Naruto turned back towards the bridge-builder, floating a few centimeters above the bridge's surface. "I got rid of the idiot. You're welcome."


End file.
